A charge pump circuit boosts a voltage of a battery so as to generate a
drive voltage for an LED. A constant current circuit generates a constant
current to feed through the LED. A monitoring circuit monitors a cathode
potential of the LED, i.e., a voltage across the constant current
circuit. A control circuit receives a result of monitoring from the
monitoring circuit 110 and increases a step-up ratio of the charge pump
circuit when the voltage across the constant current circuit drops below
a minimum voltage that guarantees a constant current. The control circuit
sets an externally requested constant current value in the constant
current circuit. When a change from a large current to a small current is
requested, the control circuit returns the step-up ratio of the charge
pump circuit to 1.0.